Croatian Ivo Karlovic delivered the coup de grace as the Philippine Mavericks outclassed home team Obi UAE Royals, 26-24, to get their campaign in the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) Dubai leg going Monday night at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium. Federer got a taste of the fan excitement in India as he was beaten by Rafael Nadal, a match which created huge excitement on the subcontinent.
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Roger Federer said he hopes to carry some of the momentum he has this season into next year to win another Grand Slam title.
The mere sight of the 34-year-old Swiss was enough to elicit screams from the thousands of spectators. I have had a great experience.
“The match against Stan was tough, plenty of high-quality points”. My team has been brilliant and I had a blast.
“I’m feeling fine physically and in good shape”, Federer said, reports ESPN. Everyone was competitive. You don’t read too much into the matches because some of the guys haven’t played matches for a while and haven’t been practising as much.
Those results gave the Aces command and victory was sealed when Bopanna and Ivan Dodig beat Herbert and Leander Paes in the men’s doubles 6-5, rendering Bernard Tomic’s 6-3 loss to Philipp Kohlschreiber immaterial.
The Slammers had started the match well, with Carlos Moya beating Goran Ivanisevic 6-4 in the legend’s singles before Karolina Pliskova edged out Kristina Mladenovic 6-5 in the women’s singles.
This was the first of two appearances for Murray in this year’s IPTL with another match scheduled on Wednesday against the Indian Aces.
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Federer and Daniel Nestor again handed Royals a two point lead when they beat Wawrinka and Marcelo Melo 6-4.
